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Cherrywood - Bray North traffic comes to a halt

  • 02-10-2013 9:03am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,065 ✭✭✭


    Does anyone know why at the Cherrywood-Bray North exits the traffic grinds to a halt every day?

    It doesn't seem to matter what the weather conditions or the traffic on the M50 is like, once I get to those exits it becomes a car park.

    It takes me usually 30-35 mins to get from the airport to Bray North and another 15mins from that exit to the Southern Cross Road :confused:

    R


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 24,462 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    4 lanes (2x n11, 2x m50) into two and plenty of selfish fools who stay in the Bray north turnoff until the last moment before trying to force their way back in.

    You tend to get waves all the way back from the Enniskerry exit due to the terrible roundabout there slowing traffic up all the way back, this further compounds the merger.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,643 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    4 lanes (2x n11, 2x m50) into two and plenty of selfish fools who stay in the Bray north turnoff until the last moment before trying to force their way back in.

    4 lanes into 2 is the reason, where people merge back in doesn't make a lot of difference as you have to force your way into the adjoining lane at some point. Arguably merging later makes better use of the relatively empty 3rd lane.

    (they really need to extend the 3rd lane as far as J7 - there is space but a couple of bridges might need rebuilding)


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,249 ✭✭✭Macy0161


    4 lanes into two is the issue. I don't really see where people join, once they merge properly (into an existing space in with the flow)? However, there are some that force their way in that don't help matters, particularly some of the buses who don't even wait until the last minute and instead go over the hatchings and into the hard shoulder to get every last possible inch of advantage.

    The junctions around Bray are pretty poorly designed/ can't cope. The Bray North junction has a very short slip for joining traffic, and apart from the actual merger, traffic doesn't normally speed up until past this junction. The Fassaroe exit is ok, and then the Bray South/ Greystones junction is also poor due to the roundabout and it tailing back (I think that's the same junction as Cookie Monster is mentioning).The madness of the design of Kilmac with the service station/ slip road and lunatics that insist on diving out to the main carriage way all adds to slow downs which feed back.

    Incidentally, the poorly designed junctions northbound must be a factor in the tail backs south of the Bray South junction in the mornings. It's a real pity this wasn't addressed when the state had money! I think there are tentative plans, resisted by the locals, to do something at Bray South (southbound) involving the Kilmac Junction!

    To me, there was also an underestimation of the traffic that would use the M50. For example (and I've no evidence that'd stand up, so just anecdotal) more people use the M50 up to sandyford, rather than go in the N11 to Whites Cross, than they expected. So there's more on the M50, and less on the N11 than they calculated. There's far less turn off the N11 at Whites Cross towards Leapardstown and Sandyford than there used to be when I first started using the road.

    Maybe the solution, road wise, was having the N11 form an Auxiliary lane up to the Bray South Junction, but I guess that might just shift the bottle neck. Public Transport wise, the Luas Park and Ride is the wrong side of the merge and would've been better in Cherrywood* than Carrickmines. Also the proposed Luas Extension to Bray (which included a Park and Ride at Fassaroe), if it was ever really a runner, could've shifted people out of their cars. I've also never really got why Metro West has never been proposed to go at least to Sandyford to link in with Luas Green (or maybe this was a better option for Fassaroe/ into Bray - extend metro west down the M50 to Cherrywood and then on into Bray).

    *A park and ride in Cherrywood towards the N11 could be used for Luas, busses into town on the N11 and for people parking up and cycling!


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,797 ✭✭✭munchkin_utd


    loyatemu wrote: »
    4 lanes into 2 is the reason, where people merge back in doesn't make a lot of difference as you have to force your way into the adjoining lane at some point. Arguably merging later makes better use of the relatively empty 3rd lane.

    (they really need to extend the 3rd lane as far as J7 - there is space but a couple of bridges might need rebuilding)
    merging later does relieve the problem and on the continent you'll even see signs telling motorists not to merge till almost the last moment.


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,462 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    loyatemu wrote: »
    4 lanes into 2 is the reason, where people merge back in doesn't make a lot of difference as you have to force your way into the adjoining lane at some point. Arguably merging later makes better use of the relatively empty 3rd lane.

    leads to queues in the 3rd lane as well preventing traffic coming from the m50 lanes from accessing it and making them sit in the traffic even more.

    There have been studies of the problem showing that it is the Enniskerry exit that causes the issue, not the Bray North one. It'll be in the infrastructure forum somewhere no doubt.


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